One is silver and the other's gold

For our last day in Kyoto, our first stop was to the very famous Golden Pavilion or Kinkaku-ji.  It was worth the long walk from the subway and the crowds.  Dan took a lot of great pictures.  Then, we decided to go back to where we left off yesterday.  We found the philosopher’s path, so named for a philosophy professor at Kyoto University who took his daily meditative walk along the canal in the early 1900s.  It was tree-lined and very pretty.  There were also shops and cafes along the way every so often.  At the end of the philosopher’s path was the Silver Pavilion or Ginkaku-ji.  Though under renovation, it was still particularly nice, and the gardens were even nicer.  There was a neat garden of silver sand that Dan got pictures of.  As we headed back toward the philosopher’s path (to go back home) we stopped to slurp up some udon noodles.  Then we found this place where this old couple was making these cookie/wafer things that smelled really good, so we bought a bag for 300 yen (about $3).  And they were really good!  They tasted like crispy, sugary gingerbread and we ate half the bag in no time.  The other half might not make it back home.

We came back to rest at the hotel for a few hours and then went to find a bite to eat.  We found an Indian restaurant and the naan there was twice the size of Dan’s head!  We were both stuffed.  The arcade just so happened to be across the way from the restaurant, so Dan went to play his last few games of Streetfighter in Japan.  And, guess what?  He finally won one!  “Now we can leave Japan,”  he says.